North Reed's Beach

North Reed's Beach

Reeds Beach and Pierce’s Point Beach belong to a complex of beaches that span an area that was historically the most important horseshoe crab and shorebird region in the bay. Parts of these beaches remain valuable because of optimal horseshoe crab breeding habitat and due to our previous restoration work, but other areas are still in need of restoration.

The beach in front of houses at Reeds beach is dangerously eroded. These areas contain little habitat useful for breeding crabs and the damaged bulkheads create impingement hazard for crabs. Pierce’s Point and other sites that were part of our 2013 beach restoration require additional action to complete the restoration of this critical stretch of horseshoe crab spawning habitat. Navigational dredging of Bidwell’s creek presents an opportunity to use dredge sand for beach restoration while using dredged silt to raise the elevation of nearby marshes.

PROJECT 6A: FEASIBILITY STUDY INVESTIGATE SOURCES OF SAND FOR RESTORATION OF REEDS BEACH INCLUDING SAND HARVESTING FROM SAND RICH OFFSHORE SITES OR BENEFICIAL USE OF MATERIAL DREDGED FROM BIDWELLS CREEK

This project will be a restoration of a town beach making it more closely related to an Atlantic Coast project because of the many landowners involved and the need to repair all bulkheads before restoration can begin. Unfortunately for town residents, the federal and state agencies denied the town congressionally approved Sandy damage funds because of the Army Corps of Engineers originally classified its restoration on ecological justification, presumably for horseshoe crabs and shorebirds. We will work with town officials to create the appropriate justification for federal funding or help them seek other conservation oriented funding.

1.We will work with Middle Township officials to improve the current Army Corps proposal for restoring the beach for horseshoe crab spawning using the data collected in our previous work. We expect minor alterations to the design.2.We would improve justification for public funding and seek opportunities for matching grants from foundations or agencies.3.As proposed by the Corps, this is currently a dredging project, but we will explore alternatives such as trucking sand as was done on south Reeds this spring.

Cape Shores Beach belongs to a complex of beaches spanning the area to Reed Beach and Bidwell’s ditch that were historically the most important horseshoe crab and shorebird beaches in the bay. We will also seek permitting and agency approvals to experiment with harvesting sand from sand flats just offshore of the inter-tidal beach. If successful this project could substantially improve resiliency as lost sand could be push back up to the intertidal beach regularly. The project will aim to assess the method to thoroughly investigate potential impacts to benthic fauna , shellfish and marine fish.